


The Big Game

by dralexreid



Series: Dr Piper Bishop [5]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27040915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dralexreid/pseuds/dralexreid
Summary: The BAU pursues a religious killing team in Atlanta that sets up computer webcams to record their murders and post them on the Internet. As the team closes in on the unsubs, Reid faces a life-threatening situation.
Relationships: Dr Spencer Reid/Dr Piper Bishop
Series: Dr Piper Bishop [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1972852
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	1. The Big Game

Emily Prentiss carried her drinks very carefully in the pulsating music, past Derek surrounded by women, ‘grooving’, as he liked to call it. Piper had choked on her pomegranate mocktail in laughter, forcing Haley to rub circles on her back, a practice no doubt developed from Jack.

“Hey Morgan, be careful. The one in the back could take your wallet!” she cried.

“That’s alright,” he cried to her, “I’ll be a broke, happy man.” Grinning, Emily set down the group’s drinks. Hotch sat between Haley and Piper, right behind Garcia who could (or would) not take her eyes off Derek.

“How are they treating you at the BAU, Emily?” Haley asked, rather yelled to make herself heard over the music.

“She means," Aaron corrected. "Am I being nice to you?”

“Actually, everyone has been incredibly nice,” Emily answered honestly.

“Look at him move,” Garcia purred. “He’s like a cat.”

“More like a dog,” Emily called.

“He did not ask them to dance,” she whirled at Emily. “They asked him.”

“Easy kitty, easy,” Piper laughed.

“Come on, Haley, let’s go show them how it’s done.” Piper laughed along with Emily.

“I swear, if those two act any cuter," Piper warned between chuckles, "Virginia will blow up."

"To the prime specimens of high school sweethearts,” Emily said, raising her glass. Abruptly, Garcia got up, needing to go to the loo.

She passed JJ who was killing the men in the bar at darts.

“How did you get so good at this?”

“Where I grew up, darts was like a national sport,” she bragged.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, we were too small for a bowling alley.” JJ’s phone distracted her from the conversation. “Sorry, boys, you’re gonna have to find someone else to humiliate you.”

She walked away to take the call, ruffling Spencer’s hair as she walked past him playing a trivia game about Star Trek.

“Ask me any, any question.”

“Return to Tomorrow,” Anderson prompted.

“Return to tomorrow, season 2, production number 51, an alien entity, Sargon, takes over Kirk’s body while 2 others take over Spock and Dr Mulhall.”

“Alien race?”

“Trick question. A race is never identified. Sargon is a disembodied mind.”

“What did Dr McCoy quote?” He tried to remember, but the music and the pressure were getting to him.

5…

4…

3…

2…

“I will not peddle flesh. I’m a physician. Drink!”

Finally, JJ found the door and found some quiet. “I’m sorry, could you say that again?…Ok…Um, have the police fax over everything they have so far. I’ll take care of the notifications, most everyone’s here with me. Thank you.”

* * *

“You know, it never fails,” Morgan whined, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Just as I’m getting my groove thing going, bam, we’re back at the BAU.

"If it means I don’t have to witness your 'groove thing’ ever again,” Piper grumbled. “I will sleep here if I have to.”

“You know, statistically a case doesn’t come in with any more frequency if you’re at a party or a gathering and if you aren’t. It’s a trick of the mind. We merely remember the ones that came in that way more,” Spencer explained.

"It's called the negativity bias," Piper added, to no-one in particular. "Our brains are hardwired for negativity. You'll remember insults more than compliments, why kids remember all the things they weren't allowed to do rather than all the things they could do."

“Besides," Emily continued. "Is it really that hard to get your groove 'thang’ going again?” Piper and Penelope sniggered at Emily's comment.

“Only when he’s sleeping,” Gideon commented, shrugging off his jacket as he entered the room.

“Where were you tonight?” asked Hotch

“I told you, I went to the Smithsonian.”

“You missed a good time,” Emily insisted.

"No, he didn't," Piper murmured into her tea.

“I had a good time,” he grumbled, taking a seat beside Piper.

“Well, that’s definitely over,” JJ marched in towards the projector. “Georgia; the Kyles; Dennis and Lacy were murdered an hour ago in their suburban Atlanta home.”

“An hour ago?” Hotch asked.

“Police were on scene unusually fast. One of the unsubs called them and told them that the other was about to murder the victims from inside the house. According to the dispatcher, the first male sounded terrified and begged them to get there before the other, who they both identified as Raphael, was about to kill the sinners that lived there.”

“That’s slightly ironic,” Piper scoffed, only to see all eyes on her. “Um, Raphael’s most commonly seen as the archangel of healing, but in the First Book of Enoch, he’s the angel of the human spirit, that it’s his job to purify the world. This guy could be delusional. Sees himself as a real-life Raphael.” She turned her attention back to JJ.

"The 9-1-1 centre is going to send Garcia a copy of the tape.”

“How fast was the police response time?”

“4 minutes, 26 seconds. During which time, Raphael managed to do this.” JJ flicked to a gruesome scene at which both Penelope and Piper flinched. “Mr Kyle is a dot com millionaire. His company is one of the largest employers in the community. There’s gonna be media coverage. Also, when they arrived, the police found this displayed prominently on the bed.” A torn page flashed on the screen.

“Revelations, Chapter 6, Verse 8,” Hotch identified.

“They’re killing sinners,” Morgan noted.

“These guys are on a mission,” Reid agreed. “And mission-based killers will not stop killing.”

“And I looked and behold a pale horse,” Hotch read. “And the name that sat upon him was death.”

“And hell followed with him,” Gideon continued.

* * *

“Bishop!” Hotch called after her.

“Hey, Hotch, what’s up?”

“Walk with me.” He walked past her.

As she followed her boss, she said, “I’ve watched movies, Hotch. Is this something bad? I’ve been working super hard with my classes.” He just held up a finger and motioned me in. Piper took a seat and watched her boss sit down and pull a box out of his drawer.

“I’ve had a word with your instructors, and you’ve proven yourself in the field.”

“I have?” She couldn’t remember when.

“We didn’t meet then. They were the murders in Ozona. Gideon was impressed with how you handled yourself.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready for the field yet, Hotch.”

“I know. If you are sent out, I want you supervised. But from now on…” He slid the box over to Piper. She slowly opened the box to see her very own badge and gun. “You’re an agent. I’ll still introduce you as Dr, but it’s official.”

“Thank you.”

“You deserve it. Now go get changed, the car’s coming in 8 minutes.”

* * *

For the first time, everyone on the jet was silent. Piper turned over her badge in her hand as she thumbed through the file. “This is a bad one, isn’t it?” Emily asked Derek next to her.

“Pets, I just got the 9-1-1 call from the Georgia State Police." The agents gathered near the computer.

> _“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”_
> 
> _“I’m at 1527 Chestnut Drive.”_
> 
> _“I know where you’re calling from. What’s the emergency?”_
> 
> _“He thinks they’re too greedy. They have too much.”_
> 
> _“Too much what?”_
> 
> _“Stuff, you know, possessions. Things they don’t need. Hurry!”_
> 
> _“You’re calling because these people have too much stuff?”_
> 
> _“No, I’m calling because Raphael-”_
> 
> _“That’s enough, I know why he’s calling because Raphael is going to kill the sinners that live here.”_
> 
> _“I’m sorry, did you say someone is killing somebody?”_

Emily piped up first, “Well, unsub one definitely sounds frightened. Maybe he’s doing this against his will.”

“I doubt it,” Gideon disputed.

“He whispered. He could have called out to save them instead of calling 9-1-1,” Hotch explained.

“Not if he had a gun to his head,” Morgan remarked.

“If he had a gun to his head, why would he have dialled 9-1-1?”

“Well, he’s definitely got an inferiority complex, to say the least. He sounds terrified of Raphael,” Bishop maintained.

“The second unsub said Raphael was going to kill someone,” JJ noted. “Is there a third? ”

“Referring to oneself in the third person is not uncommon for an unsub,” Reid explained. “Ted Bundy gave thoroughly detailed accounts of his murders, but he never actually admitted to doing it. He would just say, 'the killer.’”

“Okay, so I’m gonna go ahead and put the name Raphael through the Georgia criminal databases as well as our own.”

“Thanks, Garcia.”

“Ever so welcome, my liege,” she said to Hotch.

“We have a killing team on a mission in rural Georgia. We know what that means. They’re not gonna stop until the mission’s complete. We need to hit the ground running. J.J., We need an inside picture of the victims. Victimology can be critically important in a mission-based spree.”

“Already on it,” JJ replied.

“Prentiss and Bishop, go where the bodies are. Examine the wounds. They managed to kill 2 victims in 41/2 minutes. We need to know how.”

“You got it, boss,” Piper acknowledged.

“I’m gonna set up at the Atlanta field office and go over case files from the state. It would be highly unusual for a first kill to be this efficient.”

“Reid, you and Morgan, come with me to the crime scene,” Gideon said.

“We land in less than an hour. Everybody, try to get some rest,” Hotch directed.

* * *

Gideon and Reid stood next to the victim’s bed, surveying the scene. Reid glanced at his mentor and furrowed his eyebrows. “You all right?” he asked him, softly.

“Huh?”

“You seem unhappy,” Reid observed, arms crossed.

“I am unhappy, tired of people using religion to justify the terrible things they do.” The officer near them asked if they believed the unsubs were on a mission.

“These unsubs believe they’re either on a mission from God or that the Bible was somehow guiding them,” Spencer explained.

“Unsubs?”

“That stands for unknown subjects. The killers, working as a team,” he clarified.

“It sounded to me like only one of them was into the mission.”

“It’s usually more complicated than even that. In the case of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, Perry was the subservient personality. Basically against even entering the clutter home, and yet he was the one who almost single-handedly slaughtered the entire family.”

* * *

“How many times was Mr Kyle stabbed?” Emily asked the medical examiner.

“They’re all long, deep gashes. Each victim has virtually the same wounds - both throats cut, a vertical gash up one arm from wrist to elbow, and a vertical gash down one leg from crotch to upper thigh. Major arteries. It’s damned efficient.”

“How much knowledge of anatomy would someone need to do this?”

“Anyone with a basic understanding of the body knows where these arteries are.”

“Do you have any idea,” Piper said, as she looked over the body, “which one of these wounds was delivered first?”

“Um, there was, uh, there was active blood flow from each of the wounds, so they’re probably all delivered at about the same time. With any of these wounds, the victim would bleed out quickly, almost like an animal at slaughter,” the doctor said. “No, exactly like an animal at slaughter," he amended. "A deer or a lamb or a cow, something like that. You-you cut the throat first, then- then sometimes open up other major arteries to assist in draining the carcass.”

“So, maybe a hunter?”

“Or a farmer. Pretty much anyone in rural Georgia.”

“Thank you, sir, you’ve been very helpful.”

* * *

Back at the Kyles’ house, Gideon, Morgan and Reid attempted to piece together the murder.

“This is an unincorporated area. We’re stretched pretty thin, manpower-wise. That’s why we couldn’t get here any faster after the guy called.”

“4 ½ minutes, that’s pretty good response time,” Gideon murmured to the officer.

“Yeah, that’s on par with New York city’s response time. 4.3 minutes.”

“And they’ve got a hell of a lot more cops per capita," Morgan mentioned as he walked passed them, trying to establish a timeline. Stopping on the other side of the room, he turned towards his colleagues. "Ok, I know my partner called 9-1-1. The police are on the way, so I don’t have a lot of time.” He walked over to the door. “Now, assuming unsub one didn’t actively participate, I gotta believe I entered the bedroom from here. I see Mr Kyle on the other side of the bed,” he said, waving his hand towards the bed. “So I approach him,” Derek spoke as he paced to where the first body was found, “and I cut him first.” Reid stood in the back, absorbing the information.

“How do you know that?” asked the chief officer.

“A blitz attacker neutralises the greatest threat first," Gideon replied easily. "In this case, it would be the man.”

“Plus the 9-1-1 call," Morgan added. "The woman screamed.”

“You can’t scream with your throat cut,” Reid bobbed his head while saying it.

“So she runs back into the bathroom. Tries to close the door behind her,” he said, pointing to the bloody handprint on the door. “And I kill Mrs Kyle back here in the bathroom.”

“We checked that smudge for prints. Nothing. Looks like he wore some gloves. Not with any pattern. Like latex maybe.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Unsubs suffering from psychopathy, a delusion, like a message from God, or what we could classify as being disorganised,” Reid explained. “They don’t generally clean up after themselves.”

“Maybe unsub one, the frightened one, made sure they didn’t.” Morgan’s phone rang as he ended the statement and he walked away from the officers. “Yeah, talk to me, baby girl.”

_“Are you at the crime scene?”_

“Yep.”

_“Is there like a- a burgundy settee against one wall?”_

“Um, if a settee is a little couch.”

_“Oh, my lord.”_

“What? What’s wrong?”

_“I just got a viral video emailed to me by a friend.”_

“A viral what?” Gideon asked.

_“It’s a video that someone posted online that someone thinks is novel in some way, and so they send it to everyone on their email lists, and so on and so on. This one seems to be pretty popular judging by the string of names on the forward. ”_

“Garcia, is there some point to all of this?” Morgan asked.

_“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s a video of your crime scene. More specifically of your crime, most specifically of Mr Kyle being murdered.”_

“Garcia, there’s a video of this murder posted on the internet?”

 _“Yeah, shot from directly across the room from the…little couch.”_ Morgan imagined the line of sight from the couch to…the computer on the table.

* * *

The agents huddled around the computer, watching the video of the unsub.

“ _He says that the world is a cesspool of greed. Lust. Disease,_ ” the hooded figure on the screen spoke softly.

“That sounds like unsub number one,” Emily noted.

_“He says redemption must be sought. We must all repent.”_

“And he referred to being Raphael?” Hotch asked.

“Or god,” Gideon supplied.

“It’s not god. It’s someone sitting right there next to him telling this guy what to say,” Morgan spoke bitterly, sipping coffee.

_“As lord god spoke in Leviticus. And if you will not yet for all this I will punish ye 7 times more for your sins.”_

“That’s a new voice,” Morgan remarked

“A third unsub?” asked Emily.

“Could just be recorded from a religious program or sermon,” he offered.

“Punish ye 7 times. That means 5 more victims,” JJ said, rubbing her face.

“These images were shot from the exact spot on the dresser where that computer sat,” Hotch wondered aloud. “So, if this video came from that computer’s camera, then what? Did the unsubs bring it with them?”

“As far as we can tell,” Piper and Spencer looked up from their screen, “this computer belonged to the Kyles’. Garcia can do better analysis, but I found their banking statements, vacation photos.”

“One comes into the room and immediately goes after Mr Kyle. What, did the other unsub turn the camera on?”

“No, the computer was already in position,” Emily offered. Piper looked from Emily to her own screen and slowly got up, pulling Reid with her. Spencer’s forehead wrinkled at the sudden movement.

“Sir, does this place have wireless internet?” she asked softly.

“Yeah, why?”

“That camera is on right now. The computer has connected itself to the internet. It’s streaming a video feed somewhere.”

“Can we trace this stream to the destination?”

“If we keep it open, Garcia might be able-” Piper was interrupted by an incessant beeping. “There’s a message.”

THE. ARMIES. OF. SATAN. WILL. NOT. PREVAIL

“It turned off,” she moaned.

“So they’re controlling it remotely?” Hotch asked. “Is that even possible?”

“We’ll have to ask the queen,” Piper said, pulling her phone out.

“ _Yeah, you can totally access someone’s computer remotely. It’s actually done a lot today. When mortals call for tech support, instead of like giving you instructions, the tech can work on your computer from wherever she is._ ”

“And they maintain access even after the work is done?” Hotch asked.

 _“They’re not supposed to, but I suppose you could install a trojan horse during a service.”_ Gideon looked confused, to say the least.

“Something left in the computer to be turned on later,” Piper clarified. “Same way that websites get pop-up ads onto your computer.”

“Garcia, can you check the Kyles’ phone records and see if they called for tech support in the last 6 months?”

“ _Right-o. Oh, and if you get me the Kyles’ laptop, I can search the drive for anything implanted there.”_

“Fast as we can,” Hotch replied.

_“By the way, this video, it’s gone crazy viral.”_

“What does that mean?” Gideon asked again.

_“That means it’s the most downloaded video on the entire internet, worldwide. And judging by the responses embedded in the files, people seem to think it’s pretty cool.”_

“Call us if you find anything on the Kyles’ computer,” Hotch directed before Piper flipped her cell shut.

“Murder as entertainment,” Gideon scoffed.

“They probably don’t even realise it’s real,” JJ pointed out. “People see so many images online every day, they might assume it’s marketing for a horror film or something.”

“They might not want that.” Emily looked up at Piper. “Raphael, or whoever this guy is, he’s trying to warn the world. If he wanted publicity, he could’ve sent the video to the news. It’s not about fame or even pride. They could figure out that the world doesn’t care about the murders the way he wants them to.”

“The unsubs are right about one thing… The world is pretty screwed up,” Morgan said grimly.

* * *

“So what have we got so far?” They glanced at the board they’d been adding to.

“Well, the killings are clinically efficient. They had the earmarks of slaughter, as in an animal or a sacrifice,” Prentiss said.

“Haven’t been able to find anything in federal or state databases that suggest similar crimes. As far as I can tell, it’s the first in a series,” JJ added.

“At least one member of the team believes he’s killing in the name of god, suggesting psychopathy that should display extreme levels of disorganisation,” Bishop remarked.

“Yet there are forensic countermeasures and somebody in control enough to do complicated computer work,” Reid continued. “One member of the team is organised, the other’s extremely disorganised, except what’s strange is that the one that we would consider as being most in control, the one that made the phone call, can’t seem to stop the other one from killing. Usually, the frenzied personality takes direction from the cooler head.”

“All right, so let’s look at that," Hotch took over. "Unsub one called the police before the killing, but he didn’t leave time for him to get there. Is the phone call just a guy working on defence in case of capture? I mean, maybe he didn’t want to stop the other, but he did whatever he had to do to cover himself.”

“So, what do we have so far?” Gideon asked evenly. “Not enough,” he sighed.

* * *

“Hotch, I may have something.” JJ walked past Piper, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed. “So, Agent Franks is right, none of the open knife cases fit.”

“Tell me there’s a but,” Hotch said.

“Well, I looked at it a different way. I looked for unsolved home invasions. 3 months ago, there was a prowler called directly outside of the Kyles’ house. The witness was walking his dog in a nearby park. Going back to his car, he saw a man in dark clothing go over the back wall and start sneaking up to the house. By the time the state police got there, prowler was gone.”

“One person?” Reid asked her.

“Apparently.”

“Was the witness able to describe him?”

“If he did, it’s not in this case file.”

“Is there a name and address for the witness?”

“Tobias Hankel. Lives about an hour from here.”

“It’s a long shot, but he might be able to give us a description,” Hotch told them. “Why don’t you and Reid go out there, see if you can find Mr Hankel, see if he remembers something?”

As they left, Agent Franks walked in. “State just responded to another murder.”

* * *

Hotch, Gideon, Morgan and Prentiss walked into the second victim’s house. Hotch greeted the detective.

“Well, he called again. This time it was different. Only one of them spoke.”

“Which one?” Hotch asked him.

“Pretty sure it was Raphael. I wrote down what he said, and I got a recording being brought out here. Took almost 11 minutes to respond. We only had but the one unit close.”

“Could the unsub know that?” Morgan queried.

“Prentiss,” Gideon whispered to her. “Call Bishop, tell her to get started on the recording.”

“Lack of police presence out here has gotten some local media attention recently,” the detective explained as Prentiss stepped out. “9-1-1 call wasn’t the only thing that was different. This particular scene is weird in another way.”

“The male victim upstairs, he doesn’t live here. He’s a local handyman.”

“Who lives here?”

“The Douglases, I just talked to Mr Douglas a little while ago. He’s on his way back from a business meeting downstate. And according to him, he wasn’t having any handy work done on the house. And his wife was supposed to be home.”

“But she’s not?”

“She seems to be missing. But her car is here. Keys, wallet, purse. I got a description out on the field.” Gideon nodded before his phone rang.

“What do you have, Bishop?”

“ _Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and then that commit adultery. Sounds like he killed her and killed that handyman for infidelity. He saw her cheating on her husband, so there’d be another laptop.”_

 _“_ Adultery is the sin, but they kill him and not her. They abduct her,” Gideon spoke softly.

“ _Wait, she’s missing? I’ll tell Franks. And Gideon…”_

 _“_ Yeah?”

“ _He considers her a Jezebel. She’s the most reviled woman in the Bible, and considering the hate that these guys spewed for greed, they may torture her. Whatever they do, they won’t kill her just yet.”_

“What’s your gut telling you?”

“ _I’ve met my share of these self-righteous assholes. They’ll try to convert her, make her confess, even if she doesn’t want to. We have to find her, Gideon.”_

 _“_ I hope we do, Piper.” Gideon hung up, not knowing the emotional state of the woman on the other line. As he walked back in, Morgan and Prentiss walked back down.

“There’s a laptop set up on the dresser upstairs with a pretty good view of the room,” Emily announced.

“Garcia’s trying to trace the camera’s feedback to its destination.” Derek looked at Gideon walking up the stairs to see the victim.

* * *

“So why kidnap her now? Why is he deviating?” Agent Franks asked the young agent with a marker poised.

“I’m not a great Bible reader but the one thing almost every religion hates the most are adulterers, specifically women. It’s rooted in misogynistic bull-crap, but he believes it. Basically, being a whore is worse than being greedy. Plus, the guy’s delusional so might not have great relationships with many women,” she winced at her own bitter words. “Sorry, I’m not that helpful.”

“Nah, you’re doing fine. Coffee?”

“No, but thank you. I did need a sounding board. Would you mind staying?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s go over the behaviour.” She glanced at the agent. “Franks, what bothers you the most about this guy?”

“The 9-1-1 call. Why? Why give the police the chance to arrest them?” She bobbed her head and turned to her own board. “Maybe he wants them found?”

“He could’ve called us after the murders. What if it’s not about us?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve met more than a few cases of religious fanatics. These people take every random occurrence and turn it into a divine sign. What if by us not getting to the scene fast enough, he’s getting reassurance?”

“Something’s still bugging you though, what is it?”

“There’s something I’m not seeing. We hear 3 people in the first call, but we only see one in the video.” She jabbed her forehead with the back of her marker. “In the second crime scene, Raphael called alone. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t?”

“This whole time, we’ve been assuming it’s a team but they don’t act like one. Someone is clearly a dominant personality and a clearly subservient one. They don’t swing back and forth like this. Least of all take on roles that aren’t their own.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we aren’t looking at three profiles, we’re looking for one.”

* * *

“Okay, thanks, Bishop.”

“She come up with those wild theories of hers?” Morgan asked him, grinning.

“Yeah, but she may be right. Remember what she’d said about the archangel, Raphael? She thinks the unsub may be going through a dissociative personality disorder. 3 people inside one head.”

“So, Raphael doesn’t exist?”

“Only in the unsub’s mind. She thinks it’s the only explanation.” Gideon walked outside to join his team.

“If Mrs Douglas is Jezebel, there is an especially unpleasant death in her future.”

* * *

As Hotch, Gideon, Morgan and Prentiss returned to the police station, Morgan updated the group on Garcia’s progress. “She’s running voice analysis on the first 9-1-1 call to see if there are actually 2 voices. She’s also going to peel the third voice off the videotape and see if that gets anything.”

“Hotch, Garcia’s on the phone for you!” called Bishop.

_“Jeez, don’t you people answer your cell phones anymore?”_

“We were driving back to Atlanta through the countryside. Spotty cell signal.”

_“If you think that first video went viral fast, the second one’s going through the stratosphere.”_

“Second video? ”

_“Yeah, there’s a new video from our psycho. I’m downloading it myself right now. Some of these upload sites get more than a million hits a day.”_

“Get it on the monitor here as soon as you can.”

* * *

Soon enough they were huddled around the monitor, except for Bishop. She paced behind them, not really wanting to see what would happen. The others watched Mrs Douglas helplessly as she was torn apart by three dogs. Gideon closed his eyes.

“Jezebel’s death,” he spoke. Hotch told Prentiss to turn it off, but the police detective stopped.

“Those dogs I recognise them. They attacked someone a couple of months ago. I would have had them impounded, but the victim knew the owner. A neighbour. He didn’t want to press charges.”

“You’re sure?”

“As God is my witness. I knew those dogs looked sick. I called animal control, I don’t know if they ever followed up on it. Here it is.”

“You know the name?” Bishop asked, quietly.

“Hankel.”

“What?”

“Tobias Hankel.

"Reid and JJ left to go there a few hours ago.”

* * *

JJ knocked on the door, Reid just behind him. “Mr Hankel? F. B. I., I’m Agent Jareau, this is Agent Reid. May we come in?”

The man only opened the door a smidge, just enough for them to see his face, nothing else. “Um… I’m sorry, I don’t let anyone in the house.” He glanced back as though someone was there, behind him.

“Actually, I, uh, really have to," Spencer shifted, "um… You know, go?”

“You do?” JJ looked at his colleague.

“For 30 minutes.”

“Why didn’t you say something in the car?” she hissed.

“Uh, do you mind?”

“I’m sorry. My father doesn’t like it,” Tobias whispered.

“Your father? You’re, like, 30,” Spencer said, surprised.

“At what age can one start disrespecting the wishes of their parents?”

“You witnessed something a few months ago,” JJ said, ignoring the tall doctor bouncing on the balls of his feet, “That might be very helpful to us.”

“I did?”

“You saw someone go over a wall into a yard, you called the police?”

“Me?”

“You didn’t? Sorry. Is there another Tobias Hankel here?”

“Just me and my father. Charles.”

“There’s a report on file that lists you as calling 9-1-1. You were walking a dog.”

“No, that’s wrong, I don’t have a dog.”

“Oh. All right, well, sorry to bother you, sir.”

“Are you sure I can’t just quickly use the-” Hankel cut Reid off, apologising and closing the door on them.

“That’s weird,” JJ commented. “Why bother calling the police in the first place if later, you’re just going to pretend you didn’t?”

Reid turned and looked at JJ. “To gauge the response time.”

“What?”

“If you were going to kill somebody, but you wanted to call the police first, what would you need to know?”

“How long it takes them to get there.” The realisation hit both of them and Reid ran along the side of the house. Gazing through the window, he saw screens and as he scanned the room, he caught Tobias’s eye, just before Tobias tried to make a run for it.

“JJ, he’s headed for the barn. He’s the unsub." They ran towards the large red building and crouched by the entrance. "JJ, cover the front, I’m gonna go around back. Hotch knows we came here. He’ll come looking for us. We’ll just wait him out.”

Spencer left her near the gate and sprinted to the back. His breathing was soft, his eyes glancing between the barn and the field in front of him. For a split second, he saw a man between the wheat. He called for JJ to no avail.

She couldn’t hear him and she had bigger problems to face. The gate was slightly open and her curiosity got the best of her. She poked her head slowly through the doors and held out a torch. That was when the dogs pounced.

Spencer cautiously stalked through the field and he heard the conversation between a father and son. He heard the sound of gunshots behind him and instinct took over. He whirled around and yelled her name, only to have a pistol whip the back of his head. He fell to the ground, staring up at the barrel of Tobias Hankel’s gun.

* * *

“I’ve been calling them for the past 15 minutes and nothing.” Piper was tapping her foot, combing her hand through her hair in her seat next to Hotch. “It’s probably just the cell service, right?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “And Spence is like the smartest guy I know. He’ll have figured it out by now.”

“Piper, you need to breathe. Remember your training. They’re going to be fine.”

They tumbled out of the cars, sprinting into action. Gideon and Hotch took the house while Bishop, Morgan and Prentiss took the barn. Slowly and silently, they perambulated the barn, guns and torches at the ready. “Jesus,” Morgan whispered as his torchlight fell on a dog, shot in the stomach. But his stomach dropped at the sight of a mangled body.

“FBI!” A familiar voice yelled behind him “Don’t move!” His friend stood there, hands bloody, shaking as she held a gun up at them.

“JJ, don’t shoot! It’s us.” Piper ran in to wrap her up in her arms.

“Are you hurt?” Prentiss asked.

“Tobias Hankel is the unsub,” she managed.

“We know,” Morgan said.

“We just thought he was a witness.”

Morgan looked at the bloodshed around them.

“I had to kill them.”

“JJ, where’s Spencer?” Piper asked, relieved that at least one of them was okay, her heart still terrified for Spencer.

“They just completely tore her apart. There’s nothing left of her.”

“JJ, look at me,” Emily said. “Look at me. Where’s Reid?”

“Uh...We split up. He said he was going to go in the back.” Prentiss looked at Morgan and Bishop.

Piper and Derek sprinted towards the back of the barn, dread threatening to consume her. Gideon and Hotch quickly cleared the house. JJ was being checked over by EMTs. Emily walked over to them.

“Hey, is there any sign of him yet?” She asked the sheriff.

“We got every one of our units on the road. He won’t make it far.”

JJ spoke softly. “You can’t find Reid?”

“Not yet,” she said. Emily was about to reach out to her until she heard her name called by Morgan and Bishop.

“We think Spencer followed Hankel into the cornfield. It looks like somebody got dragged.” Piper noticed radio chatter behind her.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“That was the sheriff 2 towns over. He just gave directions to a man who fit Hankel’s description. It’s to a motor lodge in Fort Bend.”

“Thank you.” She turned to tell her colleagues. “Guys, we need to find Gideon and Hotch.”

* * *

Piper paced in the house. She had been ordered to stay there to work on behaviour and keep the team updated. She felt lost in the mess around her and she couldn’t stop thinking of Spencer.

“Garcia.”

_“Speak and you shall be heard.”_

“It’s Spencer.”

_“What?”_

“That son of a bitch took Spencer.”


	2. Chapter 2

Spencer was disoriented. He hadn’t been awake during the car ride. He had no idea where he was. He just hoped they were looking for him. As he blinked, his eyes focused on the light. He felt ropes tight around his wrist, fibres digging into the skin.

“They’re gone.” Hankel leaned down towards the doctor.

“Who are they?”

“It’s just me now.”

“Who… who are you?”

“I’m Raphael,” he said, drawing to his full height.

“What’s that smell?”

“They’re burning fish hearts and livers. Keeps away the devil. They believe you can see inside men’s minds.”

“It’s not true. I study human behaviour.”

“Shh.” Raphael opened up his gun.“I’m not interested in the arguments of men.”

“You know what this is?” He held a bullet to Spencer’s face. “This is God’s will.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I am just an instrument of God.” He pulled the trigger.

^-^

> There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins. Ecclesiastes 7:20.

^-^

Hotch and Garcia pulled up in a black SUV up to the decrepit house.

“You know, they do have hotels in Georgia.”

“If we’re going to figure out where Tobias Hankel has taken Reid, the answer is in this house. There’s no sense splitting time between here and a field office. Right. Think of the house as a witness. If it could talk, what would it tell us?” Hotch walked into the house while Garcia lingered on the porch.

“My guess is it’d tell us to get the hell out.”

She walked into a nightmare. There were messes everywhere. Books and papers scattered everywhere. JJ sat in a chair with journals in front of her, her shirt splattered with blood. Prentiss was looking through boxes and Gideon was reading. Piper sat cross-legged on the floor, earphones in, scanning through journals with a pencil, but she was unrecognisable. Garcia noted the bags under her eyes, she’d swapped a blazer with a thin wool cardigan. Comfort clothes.

“Welcome to our nightmare,” JJ scoffed.

“His computer is an extension of his brain. I need you to dissect it,” Gideon dictated.

Morgan nudged her to the computers. “I’ll get you set up. Come on.”

“How is she?”

“Who?”

“Pipes. She looks devastated.” Morgan leaned back to look at them.

“She looks fine to me.”

^-^

“So, nothing new since I left?”

“Well, the good thing is, the guy documented practically every second of his life,” Emily said. “Piper’s working on a sketch of what his life was like.” She nodded towards the crouched figure in the corner. “The bad news is, we’re still un-piling.”

“Journalling is a form of therapy,” she muttered. “Suffice it to say, I’m used to reading crap like this.”

“From the looks of it, he hasn’t left this place in years. He knew he could pretend to be looking for a motel and throw us off his trail."

“No,” A quiet, strong voice rang out. “He’s been making these moves for too long. I was just so thick, I ignored it,” Piper snorted, turning another page. “The 9-1-1 calls were a sign to him. Whenever he slips past us, his religious delusion is reassured. He takes every random occurrence and turns it into a divine sign that God is on his side, not ours.”

^-^

“Right out of the gate, the guy’s self-taught,” Garcia noted to Morgan. “His mainframe is totally idiosyncratic, but it’s pretty brilliant.”

“What does this son of a bitch watch online, what the hell is all of this?”

“It’s tame stuff; video games, software, sports. Seriously, if I had to guess whose system this belongs to, I would say a crazy smart high-school kid.”

“Garcia, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, that’s what I’ve got.”

“A mission-based killer like Hankel would need constant reassurance; religious manifesto, violent images, something.”

“Nothing, baby. Nothing.”

“What about the mpegs of the murders he posted on-line? Does he sit and watch those over and over?”

“Ok, that’s weird.”

“What? Talk to me.”

“They’re not even here. All I have is a site he set up once he commandeered people’s webcams, and he keeps a running clock, and at a certain point, each one is bookmarked with a different heading.”

“Adulterer, liar, thief, this guy sits here for days and just watches these people. He waits for them to commit a sin.”

“Yeah, except Spencer’s completely innocent.”

“If you dig deep enough on any of us, we all have our sins, including Spencer.”

^-^

Spencer stared at the floor. He was trying to stay sane by listing things; the sound of Piper’s laugh, the warmth of Derek’s hugs, the feel of JJ’s hands ruffling his hair, Penelope making fun of him, the rare moments when Hotch smiled at him for his physics magic when Gideon bested him in chess. He was trying to burn the smell of hyacinths in his brain when he heard the door open beside him.

“What are you staring at, boy?” Tobias dumped the firewood to the floor.

“You’re not Raphael.”

“Do I look like Raphael?”

Spencer licked his lips. “Thank you for burning those…keeping us safe.”

“Don’t try to trick me.”

“I would never try and trick you.”

“You’re a liar.”

“I’m not a liar.”

“Lying’s a sin.”

“I’m not a liar.” Tobias moved in front of Spencer, grabbing his foot.

“This will be over quickly if you just confess your sins.”

“I’m not a sinner.” He pulled off Spencer’s shoes.

“We’re all sinners.”

“The Lord spake unto Moses saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of the lord and say unto them, ye shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.”

“You know Leviticus.”

“I know every word of the Bible. I can recite it for you.”

“The devil knows how to read too.”

“I’m not a devil,” he begged. “I’m not a devil. I’m a man. My name is Spencer Reid, and I have a mother, and I have a father just like you, and they taught me the Bible. Let me just recite the Bible,” he pleaded, on the verge of sobbing.

“Time to confess, Spencer Reid,” declared the monster holding the doctor’s foot. He raised his arm and Spencer flinched.

^-^

Piper flipped through pages, noting down the important events in his life. She still didn’t know who the third personality was and she was probably reading the journals out of order. She downed the last dregs of her coffee and powered through it. Hotch was discreetly watching her.

“She hasn’t slept Hotch. I don’t know how long she’s gonna keep running on coffee and Adderall.”

“I can’t order her to go to sleep, Morgan. She’s probably terrified of closing her eyes.” Hotch put down his file and picked up another.

Gideon was upstairs, staring at flowery wallpaper.

“Hey, Gideon, I have got a list of Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Someone’s name and number are written on it, but this looks to be about 12 years old.”

“Try it, Prentiss,” he said, peeling the wallpaper. “There are no bad leads.” Emily watched his hands reveal strings of handwriting.

“Honora Patrum Tuum,” Gideon read aloud. “Honor thy father.”

^-^

Morgan’s yell from outside brought the team out to the side of the house. He’d found a cellar. Checking with Hotch behind him, Derek flung open the cellar. “Tobias Hankel!” He pointed his gun and torch inside. “FBI” But instead of finding Tobias and Reid, they found the father, Charles Hankel.

^-^

Spencer Reid couldn’t sleep. His brain kept thinking of different scenarios. _What if he poisons you? What if he kills you? What if this is the end for you? What if you never see them again? Never see her again?_ His spiralling thoughts were interrupted by Hankel carrying a large roasted sheep.

“You need to eat,” Tobias said softly.

“What’s your name?”

“Tobias.”

“Tobias? Who was here before?”

“It was probably my father. I’m sorry if he hurt you.” He grabbed the belt buckle beside him and pulled it across Spencer’s arm.

“What are you doing? Don’t. Please don’t.”

“It helps.” Spencer struggled against him. Tobias pulled out a vial from his pocket and pushed the injector in.

“Please. I don’t want it. I don’t want it. Please.”

“Don’t tell my father. He doesn’t know they’re here.”

Finally, he slept. He dreamt of the day his father left them. He’d decided. No matter how much his mother pleaded, he left. He remembered flashes of conversation.

_“Spencer, please go to the other room.”_

_“Don’t treat him like a child.”_

_“Statistically, children who grow up in 2-parent households attain 3 more years of higher education than children from single-parent households.”_

_“We’re not statistics, Spencer._ _If you refuse to take care of yourself, I can’t help you.”_

 _“Well, you could take Spencer with you, just for a little while._ _You’re weak.”_

_“You’re right. Goodbye,”_

_“I’m not weak,” he’d said._

_“I know, honey.”_

“I’m not weak,” he murmured.

“I don’t give a damn whether you’re weak or strong. Yell all you want, boy. Ain’t no one gonna hear you where you are.”

^-^

Morgan stepped outside the house to speak to the sheriff

“The coroner put Charles Hankel’s death at approximately 6 months ago.”

“Ok, that’s got to be the stressor.”

“Stressor?”

“His father’s death is probably what set him off. What we need to do is focus on that time period, see what was going on in his life, and maybe we can get a key to where he’s hiding now.”

Piper exited the house, pulling her cardigan closer and stood by the porch with a cup of tea.

“Morgan,” Piper called from the porch.“I may have something.”

^-^

With everyone’s eyes on her, she unconsciously pulled the sleeves of her cardigan closer. Taking a deep breath, she laid out a few of the more important journals on the table. She picked up the one on the left. “This journal is filled with religious ramblings. He notates hour by hour. "November 15th, 3:17- if ye offer a sacrifice of peace offering unto the Lord, ye shall offer it at your own will. ” And it goes on and on. 5:04, 7:41, 10:22, 1:42. But then it goes blank for days.“

"Maybe he got sick of writing.”

“No,” she dismissed him, picking up the second journal. “December 6th. Father sick. Wants me to put him down. I say, thou shalt not kill. He says, honor thy father. Must pray for guidance.” She closed the leather book. “He says that he killed his father in December, but Charles had already been dead in August.” Her thoughts were still scattered and now she was pacing. “Tobias’ bedroom upstairs has got junk piled from floor to ceiling, but the other bedroom could pass a military inspection.”

“Piper,” Hotch gently held her shoulders, “are you telling me one of Tobias’ personalities was his father?”

“I think that… that the substance abuse…um combined with the domestic abuse and the moral dilemma regarding his father…his break makes sense. Hotch, Tobias Hankel is a broken man stuck within three distinct personalities. His brain couldn’t handle the moral contradiction of killing his father, so it split into 2 personalities in order to keep his father alive and Raphael as an archangel is ruthlessly moral and acts as a mediator between the two.”

“Right,” Morgan agreed. “Tobias was raised with a strict religious code and when his father asked Tobias to kill him, something had to give.”

“We need to start profiling Tobias’ father. He may be the one who chose where to take Reid.”

“What do you need me to do Hotch?” Piper looked at him carefully.

“Get some rest. You did well. I need you to sleep, even for just an hour. No buts. Go upstairs or take the couch but get some sleep.”

^-^

“Garcia, I need you to log into the system as Tobias’ father.”

“The system was set up 3 months ago. Dad was already dead.”

“I know that smarty-pants, but do it for your boy anyway, all right?”

“Ok…Oh.”

^-^

“This could be some bad news,” the sheriff announced. “A computer store was robbed in the middle of the night. A suburb outside of Atlanta. The thief got away with 4 laptops, external hard drives, and a satellite.”

“If it’s Tobias, it puts him right back in business.”

Morgan’s yell brought them all into the computer room. Piper’s bleary eyes barely recognised Spencer. “Garcia, can’t you track him?”

“No, Hankel’s only streaming this to his home computer.” Piper stared at the ceiling and sniffled. She felt Derek’s hand on her shoulder and leaned into him.

“This is for us. He knows we’re here,” Gideon noted.

“I’m gonna put this guy’s head on a stick,” Derek muttered.

“Why can’t you locate him?”

“He’s rerouting to a different I.P. address every 30 seconds. I can’t track him.”

Piper leaned in to hear the voices. “Ugh, I can barely hear them, hold on.” She frantically grabbed her earphones from her pocket and plugged it in.“

"What’s he saying?”

“He’s asking Spencer to choose.”

“Choose what?”

“Not what, who, Hotch, he’s asking Spencer to pick a person for him to kill.” JJ closed her eyes as Piper’s voice broke. “He says if Spencer chooses, he’ll say the name and address of the person to be saved.” She listened. “He’s refusing.” Garcia yelped as Charles picked Spencer up. “Choose one to die, and save a life. Otherwise, they’re all dead. Address, Garcia. Marilyn David, 4913 Walnut Creek Road,” Piper relayed. Gideon called her immediately.

_“Hello.”_

“Marilyn David, my name is Jason Gideon. I’m with the F. B. I.”

_“What?”_

The screen went dark. Derek punched the wall on his way out.

“So now what? Wait for a 911 call, and hope we get there in time?”

^-^

“Okay, I’ll tell the others. Thanks, Hotch.”

“What’s up?” Piper rose from the couch to look at Emily.

“Pam and Mike Hayes, slaughtered, Mike was a defence lawyer.”

“Dear God,” Piper rubbed her eyes. “What are they doing?”

“Sheriff’s set up roadblocks for a 15-mile radius. Every unit is on the road. But so far they’ve got nothing.”

“We need to do a timeline. Where’s Morgan?”

“Getting coffee,” Emily said as she sat down next to Piper. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Isn’t it? My first day as a real agent and the one person that knows me the best is kidnapped. What does that say about me?”

“You’re doing the best you can.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not good enough. Let me know when Morgan gets back.”

“Piper-” She didn’t wait to listen. The nasty voice was back. Every time she almost dozed off, it woke her. Every time she thought she found something, it doubted her. She walked outside, the cool breeze making her shiver slightly. Once she got far enough, she yelled at the wind and her father and Tobias and God and Spencer until she fell to her knees, sobbing.

^-^

JJ clutched her cup of coffee and wandered over to Derek’s side.

“I thought you were going to try and get some rest,” Derek said, screwing the jar of sugar shut.

“Everybody else is working. I should be, too.”

“We can handle it,” he told her abruptly.

“It’s funny. I keep thinking…the one thing we need to crack this case is, uh…well, Reid.” Derek was silent. Mixing his cup of coffee, he started to walk away. “You think Reid and I should have stayed together at the barn, don’t you?”

“JJ, go get some rest.”

“I can tell that’s what you’re thinking, so…”

“I just want to get Reid home safe.”

“But… If I had his back, like I was supposed to, he’d be here now.”

“JJ, what do you want from me?”

“I just… I want… Someone to tell me the truth.”

“The truth is one of you is here, and one of you isn’t. You got to figure the rest out for yourself.”

^-^

Dr Piper Bishop had washed her face a dozen times by now, but her eyes were still puffy. Sticking on the last photograph, she said, “We can trace their whole family history.”

Derek pointed to the pictures of the smiling child. “Here we got happy, smiling pictures of Tobias.”

“Report cards show he’s above average,” Piper stated. “But at 8 years old, we have nothing.”

“That was his mother leaving,” Emily noted. “6 months later we have a form from child services saying they paid a visit.”

“Then Charles starts keeping journals about punishing sinners and needing to remove the devil from his son,” Piper shook his head saying it.

“Could correlate to Tobias’ drug use as a form of escape,” Emily added.

“So wherever Reid is, it was Tobias’ choice, not his father’s,” Derek figured.

“How do you figure?” Emily and Piper looked at him

“Look at these 2 lives. They’re like inverse graphs. One’s getting weaker when the other one’s getting angrier, so Tobias would run away but his father would have stood and fought.”

“So Tobias uses drugs as an escape. Piper, is there anything in the journals about his drug use?”

“I’d have to double-check my notes.”

The tall blonde agent cradled her bandage as she asked the team where Gideon was. “Hankel just posted the next murder.”

^-^

“I don’t understand. Why can’t we shut it down?”

“Because I can’t pinpoint his I.P. address.”

“Just remove it once he sends it.”

“It’s the internet, sir. Once something’s out there, you can never take it back.”

“The entire history of man. You can’t undo anything. Can you please do something, anything? I do not want him thinking he has a pulpit.”

“I have a list of everyone from the file-sharing chain. I could send out a mass warning that the video is actually a virus. I’m gonna do that. Okay.”

“What’s going on?” Gideon looked at the new agent. “You’re not getting rid of his audience, are you?”

“He’ll keep killing,” Gideon emphasised to the doctor. “ There is no other way.”

“You know the risks that kind of action is fraught with.” The agent’s eyes darkened. “We don’t know how he’s going to react. We don’t even know who’s going to react, Gideon. Spencer… he could hurt him again.” Her voice broke, but she continued, “Jason Gideon, if you go through with this, and Spencer dies, I quit.” But before she could walk away, she saw Spencer pop up on the screen in front of Penelope. “What is he doing?”

_“Confess your sins.” He slapped Spencer. “Confess!”_

_“I haven’t done anything.” Spencer pleaded with the man. He punched him. “Tobias, help me.”_

_“He can’t help you. He’s weak. Confess your sins.” Spencer sobbed._

Piper stifled her own sobs, but she couldn’t stop the tears. She blinked the tears away. “Spencer,” she whispered. She watched the monster push him so hard the chair fell. She watched him begin convulsing, unable to breathe, and she felt the air leaving her lungs.

“Oh my god. He’s killing him.”

 _“It’s the devil vacating your body.”_

Piper couldn’t look at Gideon as he squeezed her shoulder and left. She couldn’t stop staring at Spencer’s still body. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t even let out a whine. “Pen is he…?”

“No, no, don’t say that.”

The girls watched as Tobias entered the room again and Piper yelled for the agents. They gathered and watched as Spencer coughed back to life. Piper let out a sob of relief and hugged Emily beside her, burying her head in Emily’s neck. Emily gently pulled Piper up to ask a question.

“Wait. Wait a second. When was the video of the last murder posted?”

“9:23.”

“And what was the time of death?”

“The 911 call came in at 9:04, and the murder must have been moments later.”

“That’s only a 19-minute difference,” JJ pointed out.

“How long would it take to post the MPEG?” Morgan asked Garcia.

“2 or 3 minutes.”

“Let’s call it 2. You figure a maximum of 60 miles an hour in a residential area. That means Hankel has to be within a 17-mile radius of the crime scene. Garcia, can we see it on a map?” Garcia’s bejewelled fingers flew across her keyboard, pulling up a map and zooming in on a fixed point.

“Call the sheriff,” Hotch ordered. “I want that area locked down like it’s martial law.”

Garcia pointed attention back to the live stream.

_“You came back to life. There can be only one of two reasons.”_

_“I was given C. P. R.”_

_“There are no accidents. How many members are on your team?”_

_“7.”_

_“The 7 angels who had the 7 trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first sounding followed hail and they were thrown to the earth.”_

While the rest watched intently, Hotch explained, “He thinks its revelations; the 7 archangels versus the 7 angels of death.”

_“Tell me who you serve.”_

_“I serve you.”_

_“Then choose one to die.”_

_“What?”_

_“Your team members - choose one to die.”_ JJ closed her eyes.

_“Kill me.”_

_“You said you weren’t one of them.”_

_“I lied.”_

_“Your team has 6 other members.”_

_“Tell me who dies.” Raphael pulled out his gun, rolling the barrel, playing Russian Roulette._

_“No.”_

_“Choose, and prove you’ll do god’s will.”_

_“No.”_

_“Choose.”_

_“I won’t do it.”_

_“Life is a choice.”_

_“No.”_

_“Choose.”_

_“I choose… Aaron Hotchner. He’s a classic narcissist. He thinks he’s better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4. ‘Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense.’”_

Piper furrowed her eyebrows and looked to Hotch, only to see he had left. They walked out to see him with a copy of the Bible. “I’m not a narcissist.”

“Come on. Look. You can’t think anything from that,” Gideon explained. “He’s not in his right mind, Hotch.”

"No. Stop. Stop. All right, everybody right now - what’s my worst quality? Ok. I’ll start. I have no sense of humour.”

“You’re a bully,” blurted JJ.

“You can be a drill sergeant sometimes,” Morgan admitted.

“You don’t trust women as much as men,” Emily confessed.

“You’re too uptight,” Piper scoffed.

“Ok, good. I’m all these things, but none of you said that I ever put myself above the team, because I don’t, ever. Reid and I argued about the definition of classic narcissism, and he knew that I would remember that, and he also quoted Genesis, chapter 23, verse 4. Read it.” He handed the book to JJ.

“I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me the property, forbear a place among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”

“Spencer has an eidetic memory, he couldn’t get it wrong unless it was on purpose,” Piper voiced, a smile on her lips for the first time in hours. 

“He’s gotta be in a cemetery,” Morgan said.

They rushed back to the computers but there was no cemetery on the map. Gideon told Garcia to pull up the first image of Spencer.

_“I won’t choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher.”_

“Check to see if there are any reports of poaching in the last couple of days.” Garcia pulled up a report of 2 sheep being slaughtered on someone else’s property. She then pulled up a map of the property.

“What’s that patch of green there?”

“Marshall parish. I think it’s an old plantation,” said Hotch.

“Guys, Tobias wrote in his journals about staying clean and keeping away from Marshall. I thought he meant a person but it could be the plantation.”

“There’s a cemetery on the grounds.”

^-^

Piper shed her cardigan for her Kevlar vest and held her gun and badge, before stowing it in the back of her jeans.

“You remember your training?” She smiled at Hotch next to her in the driver’s seat.

“I don’t think you’d let me forget it.”

“You should forgive Gideon.”

“I will.” She licked her lips before continuing. “I trust Gideon with my life, and he’s a good tactician. As soon as we get Spencer back, I’ll apologise.”

^-^

The agents crunched through the cemetery, stopping at the house. It was silent. “Go!” Morgan charged through the door, yelling, “FBI!” But the house was empty.

“Hotch, they’ve gotta still be in the cemetery.” Piper feared the worst.

“Spread out.”

^-^

Spencer’s arms ached. Glancing back at Tobias, he kept digging his own grave. He remembered the party a few days ago. He’d accidentally implied that Hotch was too old to be at a bar and he’d started rambling, flush with embarrassment. _“Spence, for the sake of Spock, stop digging your own grave!”_ They’d laughed at Piper’s Star Trek reference. He smiled despite himself, but it wasn’t lost on the man forcing him to dig.

“What are you smiling at, boy? I ought to bury you alive in there, give you time to think about what you did,” he spat out.

Spencer saw movement in the trees and stopped digging.“Dig faster!”

“I’m not strong enough,” he croaked out.

Frustrated, Hankel jumped down from his perch, stripping his jacket and gun to grab the shovel. Reid saw his opportunity to grab the gun. “FBI!” a voice yelled from behind the trees. “Mr Hankel, put your hands where I can see them.” Spencer saw the glint of anger flash across his face. “Hankel, I won’t ask you again. Drop the shovel and raise your hands where I can see them.”

“Or what?”

“Or you can feel God’s will tear through your abdomen, then another rip through your lungs. You can surrender and maybe rot in hell if you’re lucky or you can choke on your own blood. Choose.”

He knelt on the soft ground, letting the FBI agent come through the shadows. Her silver handcuffs glinted in the moonlight. Piper leaned close to his ear. “What was it you said to him? Confess your sins,” she hissed, her gun at his navel.

He took his chance to grab his shovel and twisted. Spencer’s saviour fell on the ground, the gun out of her hand. She groaned, trying to reach. His shovel suspended a few feet above her neck, she rolled, finger curling around the trigger as she came up kneeling. _She’d have to remind Hotch to train for this situation._ Piper twisted and shot two clean shots through his stomach. Tobias fell to the ground and Piper helped Spencer out of the grave. He let go of her and dropped to the ground next to Tobias. “I have him, Spencer’s safe but I need a medic. Tobias was shot.” Piper talked into her mic stepping away from them.

“He’s dead,” Tobias whispered.

“Tobias? I didn’t— ”

“Do you think I’ll get to see my mom again?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, he could be in shock, he’s bleeding. No, it’s too dark to see bruises. Yeah, we’ll start heading up, but I think he’s limping. I could use some help getting him over. Yeah, I think I see you, Hotch.” With Piper distracted, Spencer discreetly smuggled the Dilaudid out of Tobias’s pocket.

Hotch rushed over to Spencer’s side and helped him up. “Are you alright?”

“I knew you’d understand.” The tall agent hugged Hotch.

“Spence, there’s an ambulance waiting at the edge of the cemetery, we have to go. Hotch—”

“Yeah, I got his other side.” Together, the three of them managed to make their way across a third of the cemetery before the EMTs arrived with a stretcher. “Hotch, you mind?”

“Not at all. We’ll see you at the hospital.”

^-^

Piper was asleep, her wrist in a terrible position, her thumb still holding the page she was on of her Agatha Christie novel. Spencer’s eyes flickered open and he watched her for a few minutes, snoring, before glancing at the little figurines and jello on his bedside table. The tiny Dalek pointed at the tiny man with a rainbow scarf. He smiled at her before noticing the book in her hand.

“It was the carpenter by the way.” Spencer tucked his hair behind his ear and sat up. Piper yawned, stretching like a cat, before swatting the man in the hospital bed.

“Jokes on you, I already read it on the plane.”

“Yeah, well, you look terrible. And that’s saying something considered I almost died.” She scoffed.

“Yeah, you try looking this good without sleep for 72 hours.” She chuckled.

“What? You haven’t slept?” Piper grimaced as readjusted herself in her seat. He stared at her.

“You should’ve seen Hotch trying to get her to sleep,” Garcia said as she walked in with obnoxiously bright balloons. “I swear he was about to shoot her.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep with the bruises I have. Is it always like this in the field?” Morgan just nodded at her and hugged her. “I hate it already.” Piper smiled at the small family inside the big hospital room. 

Eventually, they all filed out to get some much-needed sleep. Except for Piper, who came back with a cup of tea for the two of them. They sat, sipping on their cups of tea in comfortable silence before they both started to speak. Spencer motioned for her to start.

“I um… I was really scared, Spence. And…it made me think. I…I dunno what I’d do without you.” She let out a jagged breath. “I promised Gideon if anything had…I would’ve quit. And…I dunno if I still should. But I guess, what I’m trying to say is just… I can’t do this without you. Any of it. I just… I need you around. I…” She trailed off, unsure of where she was headed. “That’s it.” She blinked the tears away, face held skyward. Spencer licked his lips. “Uh.. what were you gonna say?”

“Nothing. Just…would you umm… read me to sleep?” She laughed that musical laugh he missed so much. 

“I dunno. You already know who did it.” She put the book away and pulled out another. “This one suits you more.”

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," she started.

> When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.  
> ― Leo Tolstoy


End file.
